


The Word of Loss

by Azlykumos



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Metafiction, POV Second Person, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25151029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azlykumos/pseuds/Azlykumos
Summary: Ruminations on what the Word of the Mother took from you
Relationships: Minfilia Warde & Warrior of Light
Kudos: 10





	The Word of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> This is some narrative-meta that I posted to tumblr to try and work through some feelings about how Minfilia as a character is treated, and decided to drop here.

Do you ever just… take a step back, and realize that Minfilia died at the Bloody Banquet? That after all the sacrifice, the rest of the Scions urging you forward, the only one you never got back was Minfilia? How her last words on this _mortal coil_ , her last human words were begging you to go, that it would be alright? 

You never saw her as a human again. 

Do you ever think about how the next time you saw her, it wasn’t _her_ that spoke, but instead your Mother, speaking through her? That Minfilia’s voice and body was given up to empower one last strange message from Hydaelyn to you, Her Beloved Child. The creeping strangeness of having someone you trust, _trusted_ , speak to you through the voice of someone dear to you, someone you hoped to find after the chaos of the Bloody Banquet. What must it have been like, to float along the aetherial sea, where the boundaries of soul-and-body flicker, and realize that your friend is gone, and the one that speaks to you is no longer there? It’s just her body that passed along a message. And she broke apart into motes of light, and any hope you had for your friend coming back broke apart with her. 

It _hurt_. You lost her, your friend, the one that welcomed you into her home, that confided in you, that you trusted and loved. You journeyed into the _Rift_ for her, you gave a complete death to one of the Ascians for her. But you had a job to do, a world to save, you couldn’t afford to linger. To mourn. 

Shortly after, another of your friends threatened to betray you, played you like the strings of a harp as he maneuvered you and your reflection around each other. You had found two more of your friends who had sacrificed themselves on that bloody night, but you might lose another, lose him to the sweet honeyed words of the same people that made you lose her. But he _pulls through_ , he saves you, saves your reflection, saves _her_. 

Your prayers, your supplications, they go not unheard. She came back, only to be sent away. But at least that was _something_ , wasn’t it? She spoke to you, to your family, _her_ family, as herself again, if only briefly. She told you not to worry, that she would take care of this, that she would take up the burden for you as she had so many times before. And you tearfully sent her on, because at least, surely, living as you did would be better than not living at all, right?

Right? 

You meet a girl with hair of bright gold and eyes of sapphire who answers to the name of the friend that you lost. You are told that this is the woman you lost, that her soul sleeps dormant within the child. And you can see it – how the girl moves exactly like the friend you lost, how she clutches her heart in _exactly the same way_ that Minfilia did, how her nose crinkles just the right way when someone says something funny. Sometimes the girl blinks, and you _swear_ you see Minfilia looking back at you, watching you. Sometimes the resemblance is enough to knock the breath from your chest, that something raw and _hurt_ in you cries out that this isn’t fair, where is your friend, where is the one that you tried your hardest to save. 

But that isn’t fair to the girl, and you know it. But it still hurts, and as much as Thancred is being an ass about it, you can understand it. He mourns, because no matter what, he’ll lose one of the two he loves. 

And you love the girl, you can’t _not_. She’s bright eyed and sees the world with a wonder that you once held, she learns that she can stand on her own and out from the legacy that’s been sat on her shoulders. You want to protect her, to help her grow and become her own person. But every now and again, you see that trace of Minfilia in her, and your gut twists again, because what chance did you really have to mourn, to move on? Minfilia promised that she would make things right, and come back to you, and you trusted that. But it turns out that the truth was a lot more complicated than you thought. 

And it’s a sticky, messy situation, one that hurts you because you love them both. You want to mourn your friend, the person who promised to come back to you, but the girl is deserving of life, of being able to cast her own shadow without suffocating under the weight of the legacy she carries. 

You ran to the ruins of Nabaath Araeng, the sounds of thunder at your heels as Thancred guarded your escape, the Light brimming and burning in your chest, and you knew, with absolute certainty, that you would lose one of them. That this tenuous coexistence would not, could not, last forever, however much you wished it. The brilliant Light that you three were so intimately connected to could not hold this situation in stasis forever. All things must fade, must move on in the cycle of life. 

You speak to her, one last time. She tells you that you are not alone, that everything will be alright, one day. And you bid goodbye to her, the bittersweet farewell eating away at your heart. 

After it was done, did you go to your room, Arbert’s comforting presence at your side, and cry? Did he do his best to try and comfort you as you _finally_ mourned her, your friend, as you tried to reconcile the faint bit of hope that fluttered in your chest? She had been thought dead before, right? Surely she could come back again, right…? 

Wasn’t it cruel, that out of all of the ones you had lost– you had lost her first, and hadn’t even really known. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not come onto this and talk about how it's better that Minfilia got killed off, or that you're glad she's gone, this is not the place for that.


End file.
